


Scar Tissue

by anythingbutgrief



Category: Shameless (US)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 11:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2227761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutgrief/pseuds/anythingbutgrief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian and Mickey go to have dinner with another couple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scar Tissue

"Mickey. Will you stop fucking with the buttons on your shirt? You look fine."

"This shirt is stupid," Mickey muttered under his breath, but he stilled his fingers when Ian’s hands came up to adjust the collar for him anyway.

Ian tilted Mickey’s chin up, forcing him to meet his eyes. “Why’re you so nervous anyway? You’re acting like you’re going on a date or something.” Mickey glared at him, but Ian hand didn’t stop smoothing over Mickey’s shoulders, and now a smirk slid into place on his mouth. “ _Are_  you on a date?”

"Fuck off."

"A  _double_  date, in fact?”

Mickey shoved him away but couldn’t keep the smile off his face, not entirely. “Shut up.”

Ian smiled and started to walk toward the closet, probably for their coats. “Okay, I’ll be a good little wife tonight in front of your friends. Nice and quiet. You can show me off.”

Mickey grabbed Ian by the wrist and tugged him forward. “I hate you, you know,” he muttered before pressing soft kisses against his mouth, hands moving up from Ian’s hands to his arms to his shoulders and back. He  _did_  want to show Ian off, formally introduce George to the guy he never shut the fuck about. Mickey licked lightly into Ian’s mouth before pulling back, loving how he looked all flushed, his mouth wet and open, eyes still shut and awaiting more kisses. “You be as loud as you want,” Mickey murmured before capturing his mouth again.

***

Mickey had been manning the bar for Kevin, and the place was basically a desert anyway, but an older guy came in, sat in front of him with his hands folded on the countertop, didn’t say shit even after Mickey glared up at him. Instead he just waited for Mickey to recognize him. It was the cop that had almost arrested him the night he came out, a few weeks ago now. “The hell do you want?” Mickey spat out. 

"Nice to see you again, too."

For all of two seconds Mickey panicked, thinking the cop had changed his mind, or was going to bust him for prostitution, or fuck, even underage drinking. But then the dude raised his hands in the air as if to show he wasn’t armed. “Off-duty, don’t worry. I just wanted to make sure you were still….”

"Here?" Mickey prompted.

"Well. Yeah. I know how this neighborhood can get." The officer stared at him expectantly for a minute, as if he was waiting for Mickey to come out with the sob stories right off the bat, eventually prodding him further, "Everything going okay?"

And no, things were not going okay, not at that time, but it was none of some random cop’s business, whether or not Ian could get out of bed. Mickey didn’t answer, just poured the guy a drink. As a thank-you, or whatever, for not bringing him in. The cop left, without incident. And then came back the next week, without incident, and so on, and so on, and so on, until Mickey got suspicious and asked him if he was looking for a fuck, almost laughing at the sight of the cop spitting out his beer in shock. 

"No. Fuck," the guy (George, Mickey had learned by then) spat out, dabbing at his chin with a napkin. "No. Just…..you gotta look out for your own, right?"

Mickey’s face hardened into a scowl. “I’m not  _yours_.”

George sighed, leaned back further on his stool. “Look, you’re scared to say anything to me, and I get it. Believe me, I get it. Just….” He slid another napkin down the bar and grabbed a pen from his pocket to scrawl down a number. “I just want you to know there’s someone you can call. If you’re in trouble. Okay?” He pushed the napkin over to Mickey along with a handful of bills for his tab. 

"This ‘cause I’m gay?" Mickey yelled at George’s back as he walked out of the bar.

"Yep!" the cop shouted back without turning around. 

***

Mickey had been over to George’s house once before, once in the middle of the night when he and Ian had a particularly nasty fight and he didn’t know where else to go, and George had given him blankets to wrap up with on the couch and a glass of water and a two-second pat on the head without asking him what had happened. But this was the first time Ian was coming, and the first time he’d see Carlos, because he’d left early on the morning after that bad night when he saw a text from a clearly inebriated Ian telling him, “com3 home babe. please. I’m sorr.” 

But Mickey was nervous now just the same, shaky as they approached the front door, his stride not as long as Ian’s, halfway hiding in his shadow. Because, yeah, he wanted to show Ian off to George, show him what a cute and sweet and funny catch he’d bagged for himself, but he was also conscious for the first time that  _he_  was being shown off to Carlos, too—shown as the little gay trainee whom George had selected as his protégé. 

Ian rang the doorbell, then turned to look at Mickey with a smile on his face, reaching down for two seconds to give his hand a reassuring squeeze, pulling away just in time for the door to open. The man who greeted them was tall, middle-aged, gorgeous.  _Well done, George_ , Mickey thought to himself. “Ian, right? And Mickey? Come in.” 

Ian had on one of those trademark charming grins of his, ever the social grace master, and had already managed to fall into step beside Carlos like it was the most natural thing in the world, making comments like, “I love your house, it’s so nice” sound completely fucking genuine somehow. Fucking magician. 

It was a relief to see George standing over the oven once they reached the kitchen. Just the sight of him in his ridiculous lime green apron made Mickey feel less tense. “The fuck are you wearing, man?” 

George hadn’t looked up from the meat yet, and casually shot back, “Ahh, come on, Mickey, you know you of all people shouldn’t be throwing stones—” He glanced up then. “Ian dressed you up nice tonight, huh?”

Ian smiled, stepped forward at the mention of his name. “No, that was all him, actually.” And of course Ian would slip naturally into conversation with George without even an introduction. What an asshole. 

"Let’s let them cook for us, huh?" Carlos said, putting a hand on Mickey’s back and guiding him off into the neighboring living room. 

"Giving them a chance to talk about me?" Mickey said once they were a safe enough distant away.

"Pretty much," Carlos replied without hesitation, grinning. "But then we can talk about them, too." 

Mickey nodded, completely clueless as to how to continue this conversation. But Carlos bailed him out soon enough.

"George and me….we’ve been together for sixteen years now."

"Jesus, fuck. How young were you when you got together?"

"I’ll take that as a compliment," Carlos said. "Not as young as you are now. It’s the babyface that tricks people." There was another pause, but it wasn’t long enough for Mickey to determine if it was awkward or not. Fuck, how did Ian do this "talking nicely to people" shit? "You kinda got one, too, you know. The babyface. Maybe you’ll age like me." 

Mickey huffed out a laugh. “Fucking doubt it. I smoke more than a chimney, man.” 

"So are you saying you doubt you’ll look this good at forty-five or you doubt you’ll make it that long?" 

Mickey had been avoiding the guy’s eyes the whole time, he realized now, only because his gaze shot up from the floor to meet him, suddenly on guard. “Fuck’s it to you?” he muttered. The last thing Mickey needed was a health and safety talk from some middle-class prick. 

But Carlos, shrugged, mood still casual. “George worries about you a lot. That’s all.” 

Mickey thumbed at his lip. “He talk about me a lot?” He didn’t know whether to be offended by that, or….or what, feel…. _good_  about it? That he was in George’s thoughts outside of their little catch-up sessions? What was that about?

"Here and there," Carlos said. "Mostly good things. Like how much you love that kid in there."

Mickey’s heart rate jumped immediately at that word, feeling defensive. “I  _never_  told him—”

"Oh, Mickey, please. It’s obvious." 

Mickey looked through the open doorway, watching Ian help with the vegetables, looked at that strand of hair on the back of his head that always stood up, no matter how hard Ian tried to comb it flat. Mickey liked to fluff it up more, liked that nothing on Ian could never stay in one position or one place, liked that Ian was all wildfire, uncontained. 

God, he was in deep. Carlos’s voice broke him out of that thought quickly enough.

"How long’s it been for you two?"

The question stumped Mickey. “Uh.” His mind flashed to a grinning Ian carrying a box of junk into their little apartment, to the memory of Ian’s mouth pressed against his in a crowded club, to Ian’s fingers tentatively touching a wall of glass, to the sensation of a tire iron sticking into his back. To the sting of dust in his eyes on a baseball pitch, the red hair of the kid on second base distracting him from wherever the hell the ball was. “Uh.”

Carlos laughed and clapped him on the back. “Relax, man, I’m not gonna get you in trouble with your other half for not knowing.”

"No, it’s not that, it’s just….not sure where to count from."

“ _Ah_.” Carlos’s tone was knowing, rather than judgmental. 

"We’ve just been through. a lot." 

Mickey braced himself to hear the standard “Who hasn’t?” response, but instead Carlos nodded and said, “Yeah. I can tell.”

"How?" Mickey wasn’t sure if he felt defensive, like there was some marking on him and Ian that he couldn’t see, that left them vulnerable, or if he was curious to know what Carlos saw. Desperate to know, even.

Carlos shook his head. “Can’t describe it. Just how you are around each other.”

"But….like…. _how_ , though?” Mickey prompted, hating that his voice had edged closer to whining, to pleading. But he needed to know.

Carlos smiled and stepped a little closer, lowered his voice right when he showed the back of his hand to Mickey. “I got this scar, right?”

It was long, jagged, lighter than the skin around it. Clearly a shaky knife job. You really couldn’t miss it, but Mickey didn’t say that, instead saying, “Yeah” to keep the guy talking.

Carlos ran his finger over it. “People look at it and want to know the big nasty awful story behind it, but. to me it’s just a scar. I see it every day now. It’s just a part of me.” 

"That doesn’t—What’s that got to do with me and Ian?"

Carlos turned his attention toward the door, too, now, staring at Ian and George bustling around each other with perfect efficiency. “You and Ian walk like you’re sharing a limp. When you first walked in he was ahead, and you were behind, watching his feet, and he would glance around to look at you, and then when you saw George, you switched, but it was the same either way. It’s like you’re both walking slower than you would if you were by yourself, right?”

Mickey swallowed, his eyes fixed on Ian and George standing together, Ian laughing genuinely, eyes sparkling at whatever George just said. Was it true? Would Ian be laughing louder, longer, more often without Mickey? Did he only slow things down?

"It’s like there’s a story there," Carlos said. "And everybody can see it. But you can’t. It’s just how you walk now. It’s just who you are." He shrugged. "Got you this far, didn’t it?"

He stared at Ian talking to George, until Ian caught his glance, turned to smile at him. Mickey felt warmer than the sidewalk in August. “He’s a lot things, man, but ‘limp’ ain’t one of ‘em.”

Carlos laughed, louder this time. “Ahhh, to be young. Of course that’d be your take-away from that. Don’t worry. You’ll get what I mean when you’re older.” 

Some part of him flushed at that phrase, “when you’re older,” with all of the ridiculous hope it implied, with that image of Ian and Mickey together in their forties and fifties and sixties still figuring it out, but……Mickey got it  _now_. He thought he did at least. Mickey was well-practiced in the feeling of walking around feeling like an open wound, and now nearly as well-practiced in that worry that he’d cut Ian open, that if he touched Ian the wrong way he’d make him bleed.

Was their relationship built on scar tissue?

Mickey blinked out of his thought by the sight of Ian walking toward him with a plate of food. “C’mon. You’re missing the party.” 

***

"Was I a good wife tonight?" Ian asked against his mouth, his fingers framing Mickey’s face, elbows planted into the pillow around his head.

"You were good," Mickey conceded, sticking a hand up Ian’s shirt to get at his abs, dancing along his ribs until he could feel the rhythm of his heart. "You’re always good, though." 

"Well, at least I try," Ian shot back with a grin, hands shifting down to undo the button of Mickey’s pants. 

And maybe it was all in a silly tone, maybe it was joking, maybe now was not the time for anything but happy lighthearted sex with his…… _person_ , but Mickey reached down to grab Ian’s hands either way. “You do more than that, you know.” He reached up to pull Ian’s head down into his neck, as if that could protect him, protect them both, and breathed into Ian’s hair. “If you weren’t here, I couldn’t……I’d…I’d fall, Ian.” 

He felt more than heard Ian breathe shakily against his neck, like he understood what Mickey meant even though he hadn’t heard the conversation from earlier. Ian’s lips pressed hard onto his collarbone, and when he spoke his voice cracked. “With you here I fall every day.” 

Mickey rolled them over so they were on their sides and ran a hand through Ian’s hair, brushing his thumb over his forehead. “That’s okay, though, right?” he whispered. “You’re tough.” 

Ian nodded, pressed his cheek into Mickey’s open hand. “With you I am.”


End file.
